Video amplifiers are usually constructed in integrated circuit (IC) form as differential amplifiers even if signal ended input and output is to be employed. Typically, such an amplifier is stabilized for dc by means of a low-pass filter in a negative feedback loop. Since the typical IC employs NPN transistors in such an amplifier,the gain-bandwidth product is quite large and well controlled. In many applications it is desirable to mute the amplifier by reducing its gain to zero or a very low value. For example, in the video disk playback art it is desirable to turn the video amplifier off (or mute it) when the tone arm (pickup) is lifted away from the disk surface. This ensures that when no signal is being picked up the display screen will go blank and that no randomly picked-up signals are reproduced. In such an application it is desirable that the muting circuit does not appreciably shift the amplifier d-c output.